“You took care of the paper? You won’t let her know I saw it? After I am gone, she can go to him and be happy. I forgive them, as Christ has forgiven me.”
“Father! Now I can believe there was a Christ.”
“It wasn’t her fault, Judith. You were never harsh with Eileen. You must not be harsh with her. She was too brilliant for me. I was never anything but a drag. I was too stupid to understand, when she told me I had won her away from him. If I had had any wit—but I did love her so!”
It was not a wail of regret. Just a simple statement of fact. He had bought a priceless treasure and had paid for it with the sorrow of the loveless years. He looked up, to see Eileen gazing in troubled wonder.
“I didn’t mean to say so much; but I believe it would be all right for you to tell her—about her mother. If it was right for Eileen—it couldn’t have been wrong for her mother. We can’t see the flowers when we put the ugly bulbs into the ground. Perhaps her own child can help you show her the path.”
“Father, I can’t endure it,” Judith cried. “It was I who blundered. I tried to show her the way. I didn’t know what her ailment was. I opened the wrong medicine.”
“You gave her your best. That’s all any of us can do. You and Eileen and I have suffered; but for my poor Vine it is terrible. She had so much love to give, and it was all sealed up in her heart until it—putrified—poisoned her. Tell her that she was not to blame. Tell her that ... Christ died ... to make others ... happy....”
The words trailed off in a half audible whisper, and David Trench slept.